The 39-year-old Shears, who is best known as the lead male singer for the pop band Scissor Sisters, told Attitude that he had a boyfriend nearly 20 years his senior when he was 16 years old.

"It wasn't the best or entirely appropriate," Shears recalled. "I was lucky in the fact that I didn't feel taken advantage of."

"He taught me how to play the guitar and introduced me to a lot of great music. But still, there was a lot of confusion, hurt feelings that surrounded the scenario that I could have done without," he added.

Shears also talked about coming out in his teens to his entrepreneurial father and Baptist mother at the urging of LGBT activist and advice columnist Dan Savage. Savage would later call the advice he gave Shears the "worst advice" he had ever given.

Despite his family's negative reaction, Shears credited Savage and his now-husband Terry Miller with changing his life.

"They changed my life," Shears said. "The made me feel like I had something to offer."